


this is how it happens

by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Character of Color, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, Fuck Or Die, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Masochism, Minor Injuries, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Sexual Coercion, spitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23920324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: JT and Malcolm are trapped in a room with a bunch of cameras and an ultimatum: have sex with one another for a dark web livestream or face worse consequences. Malcolm talks JT through it using a fantasy built up with the idea of a threesome with his wife.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel
Comments: 25
Kudos: 113





	this is how it happens

**Author's Note:**

> Endless thanks to Kate and Cosmic for helping me figure out how to make this thing work! (Also this about as consenting as this situation can allow for!)

They’ve been in this room for three hours, and the countdown on the monitor bolted to the wall is nearing its end.

“We’re running out of time to come up with an alternative,” Malcolm says.

Both he and JT have been over every inch of this place. It’s a twelve-by-twelve cube with only one door and no weak spots. The walls aren’t plaster over drywall, they’re solid concrete, and the vents that are visible are welded in place. A metal bed frame is similarly bolted to the floor and immovable. The computer monitor above the bed that counts down the time is covered in heavy-duty shatterproof plastic.

JT runs his hands over the frame of the door for the fourth time. “We’ve still got ten minutes.”

“Five. And we should use them to talk this out while we can.”

“We are not gonna have sex for a bunch of sadistic freaks on some dark web livestream.”

Malcolm exhales slowly, keeping a close watch on the time. He shrugs off his jacket and stretches out an arm to start undoing his cuffs. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

“What’s the worst these assholes can do?” JT shouts, aiming his ire at the cameras hidden under protective domes dotted around the room. He slams his fist against the door. Made of solid steel, it doesn’t so much as budge.

“You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?” Malcolm pulls loose his tie and bends forward to remove his shoes. He hesitates for a second before taking off his socks, too. The instructions from their captors were vague, but the comments coming through on the cam feed are the opposite. “Look, help me get the mattress back on the bed.”

At that, JT turns around to find Malcolm stripping his pants off. He immediately looks to the ceiling. “The fuck are you doing?” he says, and the stress in his voice is like nothing Malcolm’s heard before. Then again, the types of high-pressure situations JT has experienced have probably been very different than this one.

Not that Malcolm has ever been coerced into having sex in front of a group of faceless, wealthy deviants before—well, technically he has, but the stakes were a little different in college.

“I’m complying in order to buy us time.”

“We are _not_ doing this, Bright.”

“We already know they’re willing to hurt, maim, or kill people who don’t obey their rules. Being on the sex feed is a little more appealing than the alternatives. JT, this is the logical move. We go along with this, and Gil and Dani have more time to track down our location,” Malcolm says, struggling to get the mattress back up onto the platform bed.

Swearing under his breath, JT comes over to help him move it into place. There’s tension at his jaw, and he refuses to even look towards Malcolm. He also avoids looking at the monitor hanging a few feet away. It’s probably for the best; the scroll of comments are getting increasingly obscene.

“You’re going to have to fuck me,” Malcolm says. “Or, we could do it the other way, but I’m making some assumptions here and suspect that both of us would prefer me to bottom.“

“Bright, I’m married. I took a vow.”

“And I’m—” Malcolm replies reflexively, then stops short. “Okay, so I don’t really have any personal objections beyond the obvious.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel any better about this?”

Malcolm turns to directly face JT. He mentally tracks the timer counting down—three minutes, twenty seconds—and gathers his thoughts. When he catches JT’s gaze, he holds it, weaving to move and stay in JT’s eyeline when he tries to glance to the side. “Yes, because it means, barring the extenuating circumstances, I’d be more than willing to sleep with you,” Malcolm tells him, reaching out towards him but not making physical contact, “and your wife, when we met at the billiard hall… I’m betting she doesn’t normally react to your other cop friends the way she reacted to me.”

“What are you saying? Did you fucking profile my wife?”

“I profile everyone, to a degree, you may have noticed I have some trust issues,” Malcolm admits. He licks his lips, trying not to glance at the clock again and break eye contact. The more JT looks at him, the easier it’ll be to persuade him it’s the only choice they have. “You’ve shared your experience working alongside me with Tally, your closest friend and confidant, and most everything you’ve told her about me is positive—or has become positive now that we’ve worked together more. It’s reflective of how you privately perceive me, and those observations you share are what led her to feel affection towards me when we finally met. Couple that with her obvious desire to see you with another man, and a threesome is something she’s _definitely_ into exploring.”

JT looks stunned, not thinking so much about the people on the other side of the cameras now. He’s thinking about his wife and Malcolm.

“What I’m saying is, when it comes down to it, Tally is not going to hold it against you if you do this. She won’t like the circumstances any more than either of us, but she’s not going to think you’re any less of a man for—” Malcolm’s about to say being bisexual and catches himself at the last minute. “For agreeing to fuck me.”

It’s JT who looks at the clock, now. It’s under the one minute mark, and the seconds race down towards single digits. He grimaces and puts a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. “Okay, you’re right. We need to buy time… but I—I don’t know if I can even get it up, let alone—”

Malcolm shoves at JT to get him to sit on the edge of the bed. He immediately straddles him and brings his hand down between them to stroke at JT’s crotch right as the buzzer sounds. “Trust me, you can,” Malcolm tells him and guides JT’s hand around to grip at his ass. “An erection is often a purely physical response. It can have nothing to do with what you’re thinking or feeling. Nerves are engaged, and the body reacts. 

“If you’ve ever had to deal with a male victim of sexual assault, this is how it happens. And just like you, they’re often confused and worried about what it means, but you don’t have to be because I’m telling you: it’s very easy to be manually stimulated. We just tend to associate a hard-on or ejaculation with positive emotions and good feelings.”

“I don’t want to do this to you,” JT admits. He’s gripping Malcolm’s ass now with both hands, but it’s not an appreciative squeeze, it’s an apology.

“I know, and it’s not going to be easy, so do what I’m doing, which is pretending that it’s a Friday and you’ve kicked my ass at pool again. I’m not buzzed, but you are, and it means you don’t immediately punch me when I do this…” Malcolm says, and puts his mouth to JT’s.

JT recoils slightly but then catches himself, and Malcolm pushes into the kiss, licks in to taste JT’s tongue and then spread a smile so JT can feel it. “When it comes to men, you’re sort of my type,” Malcolm admits, before diving into the kiss again. He shifts his hips back to seat his ass even more firmly into JT’s hold.

It’s not a lie, but some of what Malcolm’s said is. He’s not trying to build some escapist fantasy up in his head; he doesn’t need to. Unlike JT, there’s an ugly part of him that’s getting off on the reality of being forced into this. It’s the same darkness that drives him to hooking up with the occasional dom that doesn’t respect boundaries and will keep going even when he starts to panic—when he’s raw and certain that he deserves the fear and the hurt. All those anonymous people watching them… if he can make this okay for JT, that’s the only thing that matters. The regret that will follow, he’ll own that for playing his part willingly in their sick game.

Malcolm starts to undo JT’s fly and pulls the man’s cock out to give it a slow, appreciative squeeze. He’s half-hard but getting there, and Malcolm murmurs encouragement into his mouth. “You’d been watching me all night, you and Tally both,” he says. “And I knew it, so when you saw me bending extra low to line up a shot, I was doing it on purpose. Can you picture it?”

“Yeah.”

Malcolm leans back and starts undoing the buttons of his shirt. “Of course you can because you’ve thought about it, too. What it’d be like to fuck a man. No, wait,” he says, tracking JT’s gaze as it skims down his neck to his collarbones. “If fucking me would be different than the last time you’d fucked a man.”

“Desert can get real lonely. Got by on handies mainly, but a couple times, yeah, it happened.” He punctuates his words with a squeeze, his thick fingers digging into Malcolm’s ass.

A genuine groan rises in Malcolm’s throat, and he sheds his shirt. “So, that’s why Tally wants to see you with another man. She knows.”

“There are no secrets in a good marriage.”

If only his parents could have adhered to those rules. 

A now-familiar voice crackles through the speaker, digitally distorted: **”Stop wasting time, pigs.”**

The line of JT’s mouth tightens.

Malcolm pushes down the front of his shorts, knowing he needs to pull this back to the fantasy. He kisses JT again, smears a murmur of words against his mouth. “Ignore them. Focus on me. What would Tally want to see you do to me?” he asks, grasping his cock and giving it a quick tug before walking his hands up JT’s broad chest. Nimbly, he takes care of the row of buttons and slides his hands over the soft tee hidden beneath. “Or see me do to you?”

“She’d, uh. She’d love to see you blow me.”

“Yeah?” Malcolm licks his lips with a bit of exaggeration. There are enough cameras around the room he doesn’t need to worry if he’s still in frame when he slips down to kneel on the floor and look up at JT. The chill of the concrete numbs his knees as he slides his hands over JT’s thighs. “I’d like that, too.”

He scrapes his teeth on the inside of JT’s knee, sneaking a glance up at the flood of comments in the cam chat.

>> _choke on it pig_  
>> _cum on his face_  
>> _knock his teeth out first_

They get progressively more cruel. Rougher might be easier for JT later, to help him feel more like he’s a victim, too, but he needs to make sure JT can stay hard first. Malcolm takes hold of JT’s cock and swirls his tongue on the tip. He keeps eye contact and adds a flirty smile. “Yank my hair. Move me like you know Tally would like. I’ve been aching for this all night, and she knows it. You know it. She saw me tonguing a bottle of beer just like this while I was thinking about having your cock in my mouth. She likes how much bigger you are than her, how she weighs nothing to you, and if it’s not obvious, that gets me hot, too.”

Tentatively, JT’s fist finds purchase in Malcolm’s hair.

“I go to clubs to get fucked in the face by guys who are as big as you and who don’t treat me like I’m going to break. I promise you, JT, you can’t break me,” he says then spits on the tip of JT’s cock and stuffs it in his mouth as deep towards his throat as he can take it without warming up.

“Fuck.”

He moans when the fingers in his hair tighten, and he feels the muscles of JT’s thighs tense under his palms. His scalp complains, a hurt to accompany the dull ache as he tries to swallow JT deeper. He pulls off briefly to cough, and JT hesitates for only a brief moment before guiding his mouth into place again.

Malcolm closes his eyes, settling into an easy rhythm, teeth guarded and tongue flat, lips chasing his fist as he learns the shape and taste of JT’s cock. Knowing that this is for an audience, he lets himself gag more than once, pulling off with spittle stringing from his lips only to lick it away and dive back in.

Once or twice, he feels JT start to soften in his mouth, but each time he opens his eyes to look up and make a soft hum of encouragement, to curve his spine and offer him wordless reminders that Malcolm _wants_ this. And he does. Fuck. If Gil and Dani don’t get to them soon, at least he’ll have had this.

“Harder,” he says, the next time he pulls off, a hoarse cough turning his voice to a rasping whisper. “Fuck my face like you know I want it. You’ve never really been rough with Tally or with anyone, really. You can be rough with me. Choke me on your dick, JT. I’ll tap out if I need to.”

JT doesn’t look convinced, but maybe he knows, too, that the people watching them aren’t going to be satisfied with a sloppy blowjob. He stands up, tucks the elastics of his shorts under his balls and guides Malcolm back onto his dick more boldly. It’s easier for him now, to take the active role, and Malcolm groans as JT starts to get more and more comfortable putting pressure behind every bob of his head. 

This time, when his moan gets cut off with his air, JT holds him in place. Malcolm’s body jerks, his knees skidding and scraping against the gritty floor. Pain follows the hard rush of lust at being forced down and held there, and his cock throbs.

He bucks his hips, hungry for something thick in his ass to match. He starts to see stars by the time JT pulls him off, holds him up by his hair as he coughs and gasps for breath, slack-mouthed and trying not to grin. There’s a wild rush of adrenaline coursing through him, a trailing edge of lightning that lines the darkness storming in his soul. “Hit me,” Malcolm says quietly, fingers curling into fists. He relaxes his jaw and the muscles in his neck. “Just don’t break anything.”

“What?”

“Most of the people who are paying for this aren’t the sort to want to see me enjoy it,” Malcolm tells him. Nevermind that he’ll enjoy it, anyway. That he’s already got that anticipatory thrill creeping through his guts at the promise of the pain and the aching throb that’ll follow.

“No! Forget it. That’s going too far,” JT hisses.

**“Stop fucking around and start fucking.”**

JT hooks a hand under Malcolm’s arm, dragging him up to his feet. He hesitates for a split second before clamping his hand to Malcolm’s throat, thumb digging hard under the line of his jaw. “I’m not going to hit you,” he insists in a harsh whisper.

For a beat Malcolm can hardly respond, a soft plaintive sound leaking out of him. He spreads a faint smile, eyes rolling up to the nearest camera and giving it a flirty kiss. “Pity because I’d have liked it.”

“Christ,” JT says, and Malcolm can’t tell if it’s disgust, pity, or something else in his tone as he shoves Malcolm towards the bed. “Are you going to like taking my dick raw, too?”

“Not particularly,” Malcolm says honestly, crawling onto the mattress. A crack against the jaw and a split lip, or a few bruises left mottling his skin, sure. Even the sting of his knees against the bare mattress won’t be something he’ll regret in a day or two when it scabs over, but the ache that’ll come every time he needs to take a shit for a week? That he’s not looking forward to. “I’d rather you use as much spit as possible, thanks.”

He spits on his fingers to start working himself open first. With his head turned towards the wall, he can barely make out the lines of the chatroom leaping on the screen. There are three distinct types of comments coming through: the ones that are enjoying them forced to fuck, the ones that want to see him hurt in the process, and the ones that are rooting for JT to give up so that some permanent damage is inflicted upon them.

“Do you like what you see?” he asks, talking to JT while staring at the camera tucked in the corner above them. He closes his eyes briefly, willing his body to relax. “I’m on your bed, waiting for you fuck me while Tally is watching. I’ve been waiting all night for this, JT. Thought about it the whole time. What it’d feel like to have your cock in me.”

“You, um, you wet enough?” JT asks. Malcolm can hear him stroking his dick, the slow tug of his fist brushing against the canvas of his pants.

“I think so.” Malcolm summons up enough spit to wet his fingers again, swiping them over his hole. He digs his fingers into his cheek, spreading himself for JT to see—for the people watching to see. “I’m at least not going to bleed if you fuck me now. Go slow, I’ll be fine.”

The mattress dips as JT shuffles forward, and Malcolm finds his body tensing up in anticipation before JT lays the head of his dick right at his hole. He breathes out slowly between pursed lips, waiting for the push, but JT lays hands on him instead, nudging away the grip of his fingers to take whole handfuls of his ass and spread him even wider. His hole clenches against the stretch, muscle fluttering as JT’s cock rides along his cleft, and then JT spits straight on him, and it turns the gritty drag into a blissful slide.

When the head of JT’s cock catches on his rim and barely pushes into him, Malcolm breathes out another curse. He’d gone a little soft as he’d fingered himself open, par for the course, but now, with the promise of being filled up, all the blood rushes straight to his dick. He’s achingly hard when JT spits on him again, when the tip of JT’s cock catches a second time and dips inside him to push at that inner, stubborn muscle that isn’t quite ready to give.

“You feel too fucking tight,” JT says, easing away. He thumbs at Malcolm’s hole, the digit, thick as it is sinking into Malcolm, is still smaller by far than his cock. He pushes a bit more spit into Malcolm and that helps, but Malcolm knows he’s only going to keep tightening up if JT doesn’t give him a chance to work onto the real thing.

“It’s fine,” Malcolm promises, moving himself back even as JT retreats. He reaches desperately to try and catch JT’s cock, to guide it at the right angle to make it seem less difficult so his body stops fighting it. His fingers slip across hot flesh, and he groans quietly—not out of pleasure, but out of loss. After this, will JT even want to look at him? “Just push. Trust me.”

JT doesn’t, clearly. Even without seeing his face, Malcolm can tell. But maybe a glance at the monitor—or a memory of the bodies they’d found that led them here—gets him past his reluctance. With a quiet, frustrated sound, he drops down over Malcolm and takes hold of his cock, brushing the head over Malcolm’s hole. Malcolm helps nudge it in, spit-slick flesh spongy under his fingers as the thick flare of it grudgingly works into him.

He pushes back, bears down against the steady intrusion, muscle twitching as it starts to accept the slide, and then, then it’s _perfect._ Malcolm’s hand falls away as JT’s cock sinks into him inch by slow inch. He braces his weight on his elbows, head hanging between them as JT makes a few experimental thrusts, each one burying him deeper.

“It’s good, it’s good,” Malcolm says, repeating it again on a soft groan even as he has to grit his teeth when the slickness fades and there’s a bit of friction on the next thrust. And it _is_ good, even with the faint burn as he takes JT in finally to the hilt and feels him pressed up snugly against his ass.

“I’m sorry, Bright,” JT mutters, his hand squeezing against Malcolm’s flank.

“I’m not,” Malcolm tells him. His mouth has flooded wet again, and he reaches back to spread more spit around where JT is buried inside him. “I’m face down on your bed, JT, and I love getting fucked. Tell me what Tally is doing as she’s watching you fuck me for the first time.”

JT’s hips twitch before he starts up, still clearly trying to go slow to make it easier on Malcolm. That probably won’t satisfy their captors for long, Malcolm thinks, but whatever keeps him going.

“She’s uh, she’s got her hand down her pants. Down her underwear.”

“So if I looked, I could see her fingers moving under the fabric as she touches herself,” Malcolm says, helping JT cement it more clearly in his mind. “Is she rubbing her clit or does she like fucking onto her fingers.”

“Her fingers,” he answers, grip going tighter on Malcolm as his rhythm gets steadier.

“Does she have her thighs tight so she’s rubbing against the heel of her hand as she fucks herself?”

“Yeah.”

“She knows what I’m feeling right now,” Malcolm tells him. He forces his hips back, meeting the peak of JT’s thrusts. “How good it is to have your cock stretching me wide.”

At that, JT rises up, hands sliding over Malcolm’s sides until he finds the place that feels most comfortable for him to hold. He’s finally looking now—really looking, Malcolm guesses—at the spread of the body before him, the curve and flex of Malcolm’s back as he fucks himself on JT’s cock.

“Tally likes it hard in the morning,” JT tells him, thumbs digging into the columns along Malcolm’s spine before ghosting over the divots there made by the overlap of muscle and bone.

He maps out the anatomy unbidden, the place where the _erector spinae_ — _spinalis, longissimus, iliocostalis_ —ducks under the wide swath of his lats, the attachment points at his _iliac crest_ and each vertebrae, the flat fibres of fascia and tendon all working together like a glorious machine. A dozen scientific names tumble through his mind under the press of JT’s hands, and he squeezes his eyes tight to be rid of them. “I like it hard pretty much all the time,” Malcolm says, praying that a snap of JT’s hips will override the places, blood-red and wretched, his mind sometimes tries to go.

“Fuck,” JT says, and his next thrust drives a sound out of Malcolm. The noise urges him on, and soon enough his body is slapping against Malcolm’s, shallow but forceful, and it works for a time to quiet the shadows that stir restlessly in the back of Malcolm’s mind.

It’s not enough for half of the people watching them, though. Malcolm catches glimpses of the words scrolling by:

>> _slut likes it 2 much_  
>> _why the fuck am i paying for this_  
>> _let me in there, i’ll do him right_

Malcolm reaches up to grab the metal of the headboard, grip white-knuckled as he stares up into the cameras and lets them see that it’s stopped being easy, the slide turned sticky and each thrust on the verge of leaving him feeling like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. He bites at his cheek when the friction gets worse, and when the taste of blood explodes into his mouth he doesn’t swallow it down, he spreads it to his lips with his tongue. Another glance at the monitor and he’s clearly satisfied a few sadistic assholes with the sight of his own blood bright red on his mouth.

But it was a mistake to look. JT follows his gaze, and his pace falters, reality creeping back in on him.

Shit.

Malcolm twists to look over his shoulder. “I just bit my cheek. Don’t stop,” he says. “I can’t come if you stop.”

“But you–” JT visibly shoves aside his own frustration and his own worries. He pulls out all the way, shuffling back a few inches, but not to stop, Malcolm realizes. He hauls Malcolm back, throwing him off-balance, chest falling flat to the mattress and only his ass up in the air now, hole gaping for the cameras. JT spits straight in him this time, and Malcolm shivers with a nasty thrill.

Shoulder digging into the mattress as he twists, Malcolm reaches to add a bit more of his own spit, pink with blood to JT’s waiting cock.

“You can come from this?” JT says, lining himself up again.

A genuine grin tugs at the corners of Malcolm’s mouth. Face-down, ass-up, an arm stretched behind him flat on the bed like he’s ready to have his wrist cuffed to his ankle. “Most definitely.”

“Damn,” JT says. He gives his cock a few strokes, knuckles bumping against Malcolm’s taint as he starts to push back in. “I never fucked a guy who really liked it that much.”

“Now you know why I said we’d probably both prefer it if I bottomed,” he says, voice wavering on a sigh. “This is perfect. Make me come, JT. Fuck me so hard I come all over your bed while Tally watches.”

“Yeah, okay,” JT says, like he’s psyching himself up. His hands spread Malcolm’s cheeks again, a subconscious comparison maybe of a body he knows far more intimately. “Just make some noise for me, Bright.”

Malcolm’s about to answer when a hard smack to his ass ripples his flesh and pulls a yelp out of him. He tries not to grin when JT starts to fuck into him and tongues at the tender spot in his cheek instead. It isn’t a struggle to summon up a moan for JT, and once he starts, the sound continues to pour out of him, broken only by gasps of air and when the slam of JT’s body against his is hard enough that it rattles his teeth.

The heat of friction where his cheek grinds against the mattress threatens to turn into a proper burn, and Malcolm tries to bring his arm up to go back on his elbows, but JT catches his wrist and holds tight. Malcolm bucks wildly as a hard shot of lust seizes him, and he spits out a curse that’s sharp with the taste of blood.

Malcolm pulls and JT doesn’t let go, his fingers only curl tighter, bruisingly hard, and Malcolm groans and shudders. The rhythm JT sets is just as punishing, and between the two, Malcolm nearly stops thinking about what the people on the other side of the cameras want. He goes silent when JT’s other hand skids up his back to find the nape of his neck, no sound left in the room except for the harsh gasp of his breath as JT rocks into him—grinds him into the mattress—and makes him come.

He tongues the corner of his mouth, body going boneless as the hazy rush of orgasm leaves his extremities tingling, his muscles no longer straining for release.

“Did you—” JT’s question is cut off by a loud buzzer and the sound of the lock in the door disengaging. JT pulls away from him, and Malcolm twists, adrenaline burning the lingering blissfulness to ash.

But it’s not their captors coming in to mete out a harsher punishment, it’s Gil, who hastily holsters his weapon and locks eyes with him. “Bright!” he bellows, and immediately assessing the state Malcolm is in, he sheds his coat and throws it to JT who covers Malcolm even before hitching up his own pants.

Malcolm’s fingers tremble as he gathers the coat around him, the body-warmed heat of it burning against his skin. He’s not particularly body shy, but it’s welcome. No doubt the team that breached the compound got an eyeful on whatever monitors were set up to control all the camera feeds.

He can hear the commotion in the hall of SWAT dragging out the handful of goons that had brought them here then Dani’s voice as she identifies the ringleader. Soon, there will be the bustle of techs coming in to assess the communications equipment to try and trace the system back to whoever it is that’s really in charge of this whole operation.

Malcolm runs it all through his head as he hastily dresses himself.

Meanwhile, Gil talks in a hushed voice with JT, the both of them keeping their backs to him to give him some semblance of privacy.

Shoes on, shirt and slacks on, and with the only real evidence of what transpired left visible in the disarray of his hair and the sting of abraded skin on his cheek, Malcolm approaches to hand Gil his jacket back. “Thanks,” he says, eyes on Gil at first and then JT who glances away.

“EMTs need to clear you. I’ll walk you out,” Gil says, reaching to touch Malcolm lightly on the arm.

“I’m fine.”

“It wasn’t a request,” Gil says, and steers him out of the room. Malcolm bites back the warning that it isn’t him on the team that Gil needs to worry about right now—not that JT would likely do very well with coddling at the moment.

He does his best to ignore any of the looks tossed his way by the other officers as they exit the compound, and he accepts the hand to help him step up into the back of the ambulance. Gil gives him a look that says, _bear with it, kid,_ before he slaps the deck and closes the doors for privacy.

“Nothing worse than a few minor abrasions and a bite to the cheek. The sex was coerced but consensual,” he says, seating himself down. The EMT is patient and thorough, asking all the right questions while cleaning the mark on his cheek and not pressing him to disrobe or go to the hospital, and eventually, Malcolm relents and allows her to take care of the scrapes on his knees that are sticky with blood. She does a better job than he would, anyway, with the meager first aid kit he keeps at home.

She gives him a blanket before she opens both doors and lets him sit on the deck. The urge to go back in there to help out is overwhelming, but if JT is getting the rest of the team up to speed, it’s probably better if he stays out of the way. Then again—

He’s about to hop down and go inside anyway when a shadow falls over him.

“Hey, Bright.”

“JT, I, uh— I thought you’d be inside.”

“I needed some air.”

“Of course.” Malcolm eases back down into sitting. He studies JT carefully, noting the way his thumb fiddles with his wedding band and the way he refuses to maintain eye contact. He draws in a deep breath and scrapes his teeth over his lip, preparing to find a way to smooth this over so they can at least continue to work together. “About what happened in there—”

JT moves suddenly, bracing an arm against the bench to Malcolm’s left. “Do you maybe want to come to Amsterdam again some time?” he asks, his brows pulled tight as he looks down at Malcolm. “With me and Tally.”

The rest of Malcolm’s thoughts fizzle, turn into smoke scattered by the breeze. “With you and Tally?” he repeats, fully realizing how poleaxed he sounds.

“Unless half of the stuff you were saying in there was just for my benefit.” JT looks away again, his lips pressing tight together. “I’ll need to talk it out with her, but if you really know your stuff, it seems like odds are she’ll say yes.”

The muscles in JT’s jaw jump, and Malcolm smothers a smile. He’d underestimated JT’s resilience by far.

“I’d love to,” he says. “Hey, maybe you can give me a few pointers. I don’t think I sunk a single shot last time.”

JT raises a brow and turns an absolutely ruthless look at him. “Oh, hell no. Sink or swim on your own merits, Bright, you’re the one who wasted time learning squash,” he says, turning when one of the officers at the cordoned off area calls his name. “Look, we’ll talk later.”

Malcolm nods and watches him head back to coordinate with the other officers, already weighing the benefit of buying a pool table to practice versus waiting for that Friday to come around and asking JT to help him line up a shot for Tally’s enjoyment.

But, he thinks, shedding the blanket to figure out where he'll be most useful, why not both.

**Author's Note:**

> Read more of my [Prodigal Son fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Prodigal+Son+%28TV+2019%29&user_id=ponderosa121), or talk to me about this twink getting wrecked on Twitter [@ponderosa121](https://twitter.com/ponderosa121) or on Discord in [Prodigal Son Trash](https://discord.gg/fQaRgBD).


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